David

  "Excused?" came an incensed whisper.

  The query had come not from David, who had been stunned into silence, but from Wen.

  Daoist Bo Yun, resolved, turned to her second student from the stage. "Yes," she said, her voice still soft. "Excused."

  Liu Na turned back to David, with the majority of her confidence returning immediately. If she hadn't turned away from Daoist Bo, David was sure there would have been such a deep smirk on her face. It was a clear attempt to infuriate him. When he ignored it, she tried for a mocking pity instead and threw sneers at Yanyan's body.

  "Excused?" Wen repeated from the edge of the cultivator's platform. He turned to Shishi for help. Shishi was sitting on top of the table they'd shared, kicking her legs in the air back and forth. Pooled around her were the contents of Wen's pockets. Her blood dripped off the edge of the table. David heard each drop hit the floor as if he was on the platform beside her.

  Shishi was smiling brightly, but there was a touch of something brittle at the corner of her lips.

  A few seconds passed. Shishi said nothing. Liu Na cycled through a few more taunting expressions. David continued to ignore her.

  "Do you know what she's done?" Wen finally blurted out. His fists were clenched. He stomped over to the table and began furiously stuffing his belongings back into his pockets. He eyed a blood-soaked talisman critically, snorted, then crumpled it up and threw it to the ground.

  "Wen Cheng," said Bo, without a change in volume. "Today is a momentous occasion for your Senior Sister. Do you think it's right to make a scene in front of-"

  "She-" Wen started. Then he whipped his head around to look over at the exit. There were nearly no mundane concertgoers left in the Hall of Voices - and equally few straggling cultivators. The remaining disciples of Song and Tang Mountain had taken the opportunity to slink away after Bo had arrived.

  Apparently, there were few enough people around for Wen to continue shouting. "She-" He stopped again, exhaled audibly, then sat down next to Shishi. "Honored Master," he decided, through gritted teeth. "Will you remind me what Scripture Senior Sister Liu cultivates."

  Now Bo was beginning to look a little annoyed. "Wen Cheng-"

  "The Yin Truth of Heart Scripture, like everyone else from our Sect," answered Shishi, still swinging her legs. She gave Wen a light cuff on the side of the head. "Melodrama is for stage presence, not for antagonizing your Master."

  "Now I understand I'm a bit new to this, so please forgive my ignorance - and I assure you that I'm quite ignorant about these matters," Wen spat out, speaking three times as fast as usual. It seemed that the angrier Wen was, the more sarcastically self-deprecating he became. "Which Sutra, which derivative art, which martial tradition from our highly esteemed Truth of Heart does that?" He pointed at Yanyan, who lay on the ground, unmoving.

  Bo's exasperation leaked through at last. "Disciple Wen Cheng. We are not discussing our foundational scripture with guests present. I don't care if he's a passing acquaintance or if you were birthed from the same womb, you should know better than-"

  "I do know better," Wen retorted, cutting her off. "None of them," he declared. "We aren’t discussing the Truth of Heart Scripture at all! As far as my limited experience goes, our Sect's techniques don't leave behind the scent of rotting wood."

  Rotting wood? All David could smell was burnt flesh, from the people who'd blown themselves up in the crowd.

  "But this Daoist," Wen said, pointing his thumb at his own chest. "Grew up on a shitty little farm on the Southern Continent, on the border between the Kingdom of Yi and the Contested Territories. Scent of wet wood on the road, ask the demons who they've healed." It sort of rhymed. David wasn't sure what it meant.

  Bo looked concerned rather than angry now. Liu Na looked baffled, but the beauties of Song Mountain were good actresses. Shishi looked disinterested, but her eyes were affixed on Liu Na.

  "It's a smell you can never forget," promised Wen. "It’s the smell of the Shifting Fortunes Sutra taught to the inner disciples of the Yellow Demon Cult, from out of the Healing Hands Scripture. And what does it do? It passes on wounds to another living being."

  "Wen," whispered Shishi.

  "Don’t you feel that sour taste at the back of your throat? If you ignore the scent of the charred innocents," Wen spread his hands in a wide arc to highlight the carnage. "It's unmistakable, and-"

  "Wen," repeated Shishi, a bit louder. "That's enough."

  Wen stilled. "Do you not believe-?"

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  Bo sighed. "My dearest disciple," she muttered, gentle and lovely once more. "We're a stone's throw from a lake, and thousands of trees, many of which I’m sure are rotting. When I took your Senior Sister as my disciple, she was a girl of thirteen, born and raised in Huzhou."

  "You don't believe me," said Wen. He glared at Shishi, then at Bo, and then at Liu Na. He also threw a stray glare at David for good measure. "None of you believe me."

  David folded his arms, trying to temper his glare unsuccessfully. "Why does it even matter how she died?" David asked. He looked at Yanyan again. "The fact of the matter-"

  "You're young," said Daoist Bo, repeating her words to him from when they'd met just a few hours ago. She'd taken the same tone, but now it seemed less like a life lesson and more like melancholy. "And idealistic. It would be shameful if you weren't. It is not my place to teach you about the world, but know this - cultivation is a selfish endeavor."

  "A selfish endeavor," echoed David, incredulously.

  "You are a son of the Ascending Sky. I consider your Peak Masters to be good people." Bo took a deep breath. "The death of any human being is a regrettable thing. But do not forget yourself. You stand within the Hall of Voices, in my city - in Huzhou. On none of my visits to Tianbei would I consider asking about what happened in the bamboo forests during the Western Wars, or debate the ethics of your Conversion Rooms."

  “Do you really think,” David started, exhaling. A hand came up to face level, shaking with anger, “that there’s nothing wrong with what she’s done?” He stabbed a finger at Liu Na.

  "There are no clean hands on the Middle Continent amongst cultivators, and fewer still anywhere else in the world," said Bo.

  The sound of the Song filled his ears. The echo of Bo's Principle crashed through the room like a cymbal.

  But David was undaunted. He'd seen sharper from Fairy Guan, deeper from Uncle Jiang. “If I knew my Peak Masters were culpable for the deaths of hundreds of innocents, I would hold them in the same contempt," he spat back. "At least in the Ascending Sky, our disciples don’t sit idly by while mortals are trampled to death. We don’t slink away through privileged paths at the first sign of danger."

  Bo narrowed her eyes. Her Principle did not abate. “And if you would pay the smallest attention to your surroundings, you’d understand that despite the look of this mess, Song Mountain has suffered no casualties, has-”

  David cut her off. “Well, of course. Song Mountain has instead caused all of the casualties I can see. Whether directly,” he pointed at Liu Na, “or by inaction. Dozens of people, civilians under your roof have perished. People with families, lives, dreams.”

  “Enough,” whispered Bo. “I won’t hear any more slander-”

  Wen hissed. “It’s not slander if it’s true.”

  Shishi’s arm shot out in a savage motion. The back of her hand met Wen’s upper lip, splitting it. Wen careened back, just managing to keep his balance. “Do not interrupt your Master when she is speaking,” Shishi muttered.

  Bo pretended she hadn’t heard Wen. “I won’t hear any more slander of my Sect, especially not from the lips of a guest we’ve so warmly received. In the view of any civilized cultivator, it would be more than just for me and mine to consider you an enemy.”

  Against all common sense, David found himself considering not the chances of escaping, but instead the chances of landing a killing blow on Liu Na before Bo could end his life. His Core, the ever-turning, ever-burning harmony within him, took on a familiar chittering - almost like silkworms, played against his Song - the rumbling creak of an old tree in the wind - not quite thunder.

  And the sound of your Song will define you.

  But Bo did not attack. Instead, she drew her Principle back and smiled - though it was markedly more brittle than her previous ones. “You are young, and it would be a shame for your path to end by my hand.”

  David no longer had any illusions about what she really meant. His life wasn’t of any concern to her - Daoist Bo’s cultivation centered around the nebulous force of karma, and she had entered Severing. Even before she’d survived her Earthly Tribulation, Shishi had made it clear that Bo avoided forming such bonds even with the mortals who worshiped her.

  Whatever Bo saw on his face displeased her. “You are proud. Instead of taking your life, an apology will suffice. I will give you two choices, Disciple Ji of the Ascending Sky. You may apologize on your own behalf, or whichever elder amongst your sect that claims you as a student can apologize in your stead.”

  David’s gaze traveled from Shishi, who was staring out past the stage into the sunrise over the waters of the Lake with a practiced nonchalance, to Wen, who’d collapsed into a seat up in the cultivator’s stand in relief. His lip was no longer bleeding, but a trail of drying blood stained his chin. He opened his mouth a few times, but Shishi tugged at his sleeve in warning each time.

  He turned to Liu Na, whose knuckles were white with sudden fury. Perhaps she found it unfair that Bo hadn’t chosen to send his head back to Tianbei in a bamboo box.

  “An apology?” He thought of the ancestral Immortal, the diver who’d possessed Bo. He thought of the Hall of Portraits and its writing from higher skies. He thought of his attempt to help Liu Na’s core form, of Wen’s manic hatred of the Yellow Demon Cult. And he thought of the screams from the rioting crowd, of Yanyan’s body cooling by his feet.

  “I’ll write you a poem,” David decided. “If it doesn’t satisfy your spirit, let my Peak Masters apologize for that, too.”

  Daoist Bo nodded, her smile widening a touch in challenge.

  David turned and walked away, towards the sliding double doors in the distance.

  Liu Na’s voice rang out, seething resentment beneath the mockery. “Where are you going? Surely an Inner Disciple of the Ascending Sky isn’t rude enough to make us wait for his apology?”

  David marched on towards the exit, determined not to slow or speed his steps.

  “A good song can soothe all your worries and change your worldview.

  “But can it hide the truth, kill it, then bury its body for you?

  “Will it break through amassed bad karma and forgive anything you do?

  “Does it undo the past, reset regrets and erase the debts you’ve accrued?”

  David reached the exit to the Hall of Voices. Bo did not stop him.

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